The extremely wide variation among states in adolescent childbearing is examined using indicators that represent high or low modernity, i.e., percent urban, percent fundamentalism, percent black, and region (South non-South); the intermediate variables of factors affecting exposure to intercourse (percent married females 15 to 19); and the deliberate fertility control factor of induced abortion (the state abortion-to-live birth ratio). Eighty-six percent of the variance among states in the 1974 teenage fertility rates (females 15 to 19) is explained, with region the most powerful single indicator of fertility, followed by percent married and state abortion ratio.
Adolescent pregnancy and childbearing continue to be a concern in the United States. Although the birth rate for women under 20 has declined over the last two decades, the total fertility rate (a measure of fertility for women 15 to 44) has fallen even faster. As a result, births to teenage females continue to represent a large percent of all births in the United States. What has increased since the mid-1960s is a rise in the proportion of babies born to adolescents outside of marriage (Baldwin, 1976; Chillnan, 1980). Even with a reduction in t,~enage fertility rates, then, the number of women, children, and others affected indicates that the situation has scarcely changed.
The medical and social consequences of adolescent childbearing have been welt documented (